"Cold War Killers"
85 minutes
1986

reviewed by mim3@mim.org, December 2005

We're pretty neutral about this movie: it should probably survive
for a while before we can do better films on the subject. It deserves some credit
for being a whodunit in connection to politics and for not making Stalin the worst evil.
This review spoils the major plot twist, so don't read it if you want to see the movie
unspoiled.

In most Western Cold War movies, no matter how ingenius the Soviet enemy, the 
British or Amerikans always win or the goal is mutual concern over
nuclear annihilation by accident. "Cold War Killers" 
turns out to be ironic title or even a play on words and an example of a movie 
as civilized as probably exists on the subject--bourgeois in a neutral sort of 
way, not necessarily favoring one country's bourgeoisie over another.

For most Amerikans the film is not violent enough and too cerebral. On the 
British side, factional fighting between ministries of the government figure
heavily and it turns out at the end, the Soviets are no different, with the
Soviet spies in conflict with Soviet spies.

In the 1950s, the Soviets supposedly killed five people in an attempt
to un-smuggle some German documents back to Soviet control where they 
were since World War II. By the 1980s, the major players left have to piece
together the history that existed before. One more persyn dies, but on the whole
diplomat-spies talk with diplomat-spies and work everything out.

In the end, the British decide that returning the documents back to Soviet
control is a good idea, in order to allow the blackmail of military forces
who wanted at the end of World War II to depose Stalin to side with Germany 
and Japan in World War II. The movie is so good as to explain that the 
West would not have survived had the deal come off. Viewers may also find it
of interest to contemplate international spy horse-trading.